Saturday, May 3, 2014

Emor/Omer

Kabbalah, Jewish
mysticism, is often misunderstood in today’s society. You may have some sort of
association between it and some red string around Madonna’s wrist. There is
much more to Jewish mysticism than that. There are ancient and medieval
writings on which Kabbalah is based, and there are different ideas and ways to
incorporate mysticism into normative Jewish practice. According to Kabbalah,
there are ten parts of G-d, called Sefirot. They represent different holy
aspects of G-d: strength, wisdom, loving kindness, etc. Each of these has
special significance for each day of the Omer, the time between Pesach and
Shavuot.

This week’s Torah
portion commands us on our holidays and holy days. Parashat Emor is one of the
multiple places in the Torah that reminds us to keep the Shabbat. It tells us
how and when to celebrate Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. It tells us to count
each day of the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot, and G-d offers little
explanation why. We do this because we are commanded to, because it adds
holiness into our celebrations of holidays and links the time of our Exodus
from Egypt (Passover) to the day we received the Torah on Sinai (Shavuot). This
is the time we are in now. Today is the 18th day of the Omer (out of
49, in case you missed the math). Today’s attribute of G-d is Netzach shebetiferet,
Ambition in Harmony.

A Hasidic
story goes that a royal caravan was traveling through the desert, and the
prince became very thirsty. Although the nearest village was not so far, the
king decided time and resources would be better spent building a well rather
than going to fetch water. He told his son, “Although you could perhaps satisfy
your thirst faster and easier by sending a servant to get you water from the
nearest town, it would only help you now. If you or another traveler found
yourself on this way again, thirsty, with no one to send to the nearest town,
you would wish there was a well right here for you. Since we have the time and
resources to build one now, it is our responsibility to do so.”

The story is
meant to show why G-d commands us to celebrate the holidays. It would have been
enough to take us out of Egypt once, and to give us the Torah once, like it
would have been enough to send a servant to fetch the prince some water. But by
giving us the holidays to celebrate each year, by building a well, we remember
every time we pass that marker that Someone wiser and stronger than us helps us
not only at the milestones, but whenever we find we need it. That is the
intended lesson of the story. However, the idea of using one’s time and
resources wisely, thinking for the future and for those without your time and
resources, also ties into today’s Sefirah, Ambition in Harmony. Ambition is
important; we should always strive toward a goal, whether a personal goal of
self-betterment, a career goal, a financial goal, a good report card goal. But
we should always be mindful of what paths we take to get there, and what we do
with our reward when we’ve reached that goal. Amibition in Harmony is being
ambitious with mindfulness of the consequences of all your actions, and
weighing your own self-gain with the overall good.

Even if you
have no interest in Kabbalah, and/or do not personally count the Omer, these
weeks between two important Jewish holidays are a good time to pause and
reflect on what it all means. Having just celebrated Passover, what does it
mean to be free? As we approach Shavuot, what does it mean to be free Jews,
given the Torah? As each day of the Omer ticks by with their assigned Sefirot,
what attributes do we associate with G-d? How can we better model ourselves
after them? May you find for yourselves answers to these questions, ambition in
harmony, and, as always, peace. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.